Russell T. Davies, Officer of the Order of the British Empire
Well that's something, huh?
I don't even think congratulations are enough, but I don't have much else, and I really don't think that he wants me to send him the DVD sets of The Real World Season One and Reno 911 Season Three that sit unopened in my DVD collection.
(Although Reno is a funny show and that season of The Real World will someday be a collector's item. Wait, am I trying to talk myself into this?)
And on the occasion of his honor there are profiles on him all over the British and international press. This comes from the International Herald-Tribune and Sarah Lyall, headlined, "'Who' is changing the face of British TV?"
Russell T Davies, perhaps the most admired writer and producer working in British television drama, was once confronted at a wedding by a fellow guest bristling with indignation about a scene in Davies's hugely successful, family-friendly science fiction series, "Doctor Who." In the scene Captain Jack Harkness, a swaggering intergalactic hero who exuberantly lusts after both men and women, plants quick kisses on the mouths of both the title character and the title character's female sidekick as they face imminent death.
(Everyone survives.)
Davies's first instinct - as a reasonable person, as a happily gay man - was to be relaxed and placatory, he said. But something snapped.
"I was standing there saying, 'You're a bad mother, and your children will either grow up to be lesbians, or they will be taken into care because they've been badly raised,"' he recalled in a recent interview near the "Doctor Who" set. He began to chuckle. "'You are ignorant, and you're bringing up your children in ignorance, and that will backfire on you."'
Luckily, the woman's husband escorted her away before a fistfight broke out. But the incident was jolting, in part because it was such an anomaly. Davies, 44, had already won these arguments, at least with most people, years before. So successfully has he pushed the boundaries of British television that he sometimes forgets how far it, and he, have come.
I know, that's a long cut, sorry Sarah, but I really want people to click over to your piece.
Man, don't you just wanna put RTD in a football stadium and just cheer at him after you hear that story? Good job, well done.
